Ecstasy
by Trogdor19
Summary: Logan and Veronica take ecstasy, and no one cuts to the next scene. Fix it for 4x03. [Part 3 of the New and Improved S4 series, all stand alone stories]
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: I've been writing fix-it's for every episode of S4, but when I hit 4x03, I was delighted to see the LoVe moments were already adorable and there was no need to write them a make-up scene. Instead, I got the infinite joy of just expanding a moment when they were happy that we CLEARLY needed more screen time of. I mean, edit down that damn pizza boy and give us some freaking Logan and Veronica on ecstasy! * shakes head at showrunners and their poor decision making* _

_In the spirit of that, this episode fix it will be __**four chapters long.**_

_(Also, I wasn't totally clear in the show about if Logan took E, or if just Veronica did, but for this I'm going to assume it was both). This starts in the scene in Nicole's bar, Comrade Quack's when Logan and Veronica went over to bring Dick a spare pair of pants.  
_

_Reminder that every episode of this New and Improved S4 series starts in canon and expands off into Trogdor non-canonlandia. I own none of these characters, just playing in the world. _

* * *

**Chapter 1**

**Veronica**

"You don't have a drink. Let's fix that."

I'm so happy to be away from the shitty music from the AirBnb below our condo, that I accept Nicole's offer of a drink immediately. That, and I'm half in love with her after trying on her sap gloves. I've never been much of a brawling kind of girl, mostly because I'm whatever weight class is underneath everybody else's. But when I put on those sap gloves, the weight of them made my fist clench, my arm seem stronger. I could sense how good it would feel to swing and connect, to watch my enemies fall.

It's been the kind of year where even _I_ want to hit somebody. I pull off the gloves, not really wanting to find out what it is about fighting that Logan's always liked so much.

I cross the office and accept the bourbon with a smile, clinking glasses with Nicole. I like how she doesn't give any fucks, but she still hangs loose. Like joy bubbles out of her even while she misses none of the bullshit that clogs up the veins of this bloated town. Nothing about her is set, or hard, but she's still plenty tough. For a second, I consider different phrasings of "How can I be you when I grow up?"

"Ahoy, Ladies!" Dick comes in, raising a drink that's the color of cleaning products. He starts flirting with Nicole, and I don't listen to another word he says until he starts joking about proposing marriage to her and it feels like I just sat on my own taser. And that's _before _Dick continues by turning to Logan and says, "Hey Logan, ring, got one?"

My jaw drops. He did _not_. I mean, I guessed maybe Logan had told him about the proposal, but I can't believe Dick's actually going to take a passive aggressive swipe at me for it in front of Nicole? Fuck, in front of _Logan_?

I feel sick, but my boyfriend just socks him. An easy punch, hard enough to let Dick know he didn't appreciate the joke, but not hard enough to knock the crown off the king of spring break. Logan doesn't even look embarrassed, so I relax, laughing a little nervously.

"Well, pace yourself," Nicole says. "Let's see how well you represent the Quacks in the volleyball tournament this weekend."

"That is fair," Dick says, "Ah! That reminds me." He turns to Logan. "You are playing volleyball with me this weekend. So try to get in shape, would you?"

The fist whips out so fast this time Dick doesn't see it coming and he yelps a little, then snickers. Logan laughs.

I hate how cute they are, those two boys with a few decades of bro-marriage under their belts, but even I'm giggling now, sipping at my bourbon and admiring how wide Logan's shoulders are under that perfectly tailored jacket. I've been so tense lately it's been hard to appreciate that he's mostly…not.

I wonder what it would feel like, to be so secure in your life and your relationship that you just don't even have to worry about it. Then again, that probably comes standard with his highly disciplined post-Navy, post-therapy life. When you get up before five to eat a well-balanced breakfast, exercise, practice your Arabic, and always say the right thing to your girlfriend, you don't really have to spend your whole life apologizing like the rest of us.

I remember a time when that was his role in our relationship, not mine. And I really don't care to examine the twinge in my belly that's not entirely comfortable with the growing evidence that that time has passed.

"Okay." Nicole claps her hands together. "Who's up for some E?" She grins. "It's the only thing that remotely makes me able to stand this whole city of nitwits and dimfucks during spring break."

Logan brightens, and cocks an eyebrow toward me.

After being roofied three times, I don't have much of a taste for anything that takes me out of my right mind, but then…why the hell not? If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Besides, Logan's here, my taser fits in my back pocket, and I already know if I pass out, Nicole and her delicious little gloves will pound the face off any frat boy who touches me.

"Yes, please!" I hold out a hand and Nicole shakes a little pill out for each one of us. I dart a look at Logan, but he's already popped his before I can even assure him it's okay if he doesn't want to partake. In the past, he's been very careful about the Navy and drug tests, and he barely drinks since he got on this all-abs-no-carbs kick, but apparently, he's in the mood to cut loose a little, too.

I ignore the prickle of anxiety that whispers to me of gaping black holes in our kitchen cabinets, guilt shadowing his eyes as he clipped a leash to Pony's collar. Wild, desperate sex that left my nail tracks in his back and his fingertip bruises on my hips, both of us pulling each other closer so hard that it hurt as we tried to get past that invisible _thing_ that's been between us.

The tiny pill feels like it's stuck halfway down my throat, and I gulp whiskey to try to wash it down. The fumes scorch the inside of my nose and I end up coughing.

"Whoa, Ronnie!" Dick shoves me aside using a full palm on my ass. I make a mental note to tase him when I'm done choking to death, but then he pops up with a bottle of water from a mini fridge I didn't notice before. "Drink up, girl. The E makes you…_thirsty_." He waggles his eyebrows. "And so does gettin' some action, in case you old not-so-married folks don't remember."

I gulp the water, then choke on that, too, when Dick's head goes flying forward from the smack Logan gave him in the back of the skull.

"Unless you like playing by yourself…ah-hem, I mean playing _volleyball_ by yourself," Logan says, "You might consider shutting the fuck up."

Nicole snorts. "Uh, you have met the King of Spring Break, right? I didn't hire him to be the strong silent type."

"That's right. You hired me to be the strong, sexy type." He rolls his stomach, making his glitter ab-enhancements catch the light. "It's good to be king!" he hollers and runs out the door, pumping his drink over his head so a little of the Windex-blue slush falls down onto the shoulder of Logan's spare plaid shirt.

"You all good?" Nicole asks me. "Molly does make you thirsty as fuck, so feel free to come back up if you need to grab some waters and can't reach the bar when the tide of douchebags is running too high."

"Yeah, right, fine." I shoot the rest of my whiskey and give her a cool, cynical smile, trying to look like the kind of person who pops random drugs with strangers all the time. Except all my fuck-it-let's-have-fun energy just took a hard left turn with the reminder that I actually have very little idea what E is supposed to feel like. Or what the side effects are. Or that apparently it has something to do with needing to drink a lot of water.

I have a flash of running my fingers through Dick's hair, my mouth mashed hard against Shelly Pomroy's. That night, all my skin felt too sensitive and yet a little achy and sick at the same time. Fuck, is it too late to throw up that pill?

Logan takes the water out of my hand and gives me a little spin that lands me in his arms. He tips his head down to my ear. "I've done E a thousand times. It's fun as fuck and as long as you don't take too much, you won't black out, won't forget a thing, and it's nowhere near strong enough to make you think kissing Dick is a good idea. Real Dick or fake Dick."

I snort into laughter at the image, and give him an appreciative squeeze for knowing exactly what I was thinking and what I needed to hear to calm down. He was quick before, my Logan, but after the training to enter Naval Intelligence, he doesn't miss a thing. Not a bat of an eye, a moment of nerves, or the difference between what the kitchen looks like when I'm hand-battering my dad's favorite fried chicken and when I'm doing his keto chicken breast-egg white weirdness that makes my stomach feel like a rock, and his ass as hard as one.

He unhooks my bag from my shoulder and slides it and my jacket to the floor, tucking them behind Nicole's chair. I start to reach for my taser but he stops me. "If you stuff it in your pocket, you're just asking for somebody to bump the button on the dance floor and shock the fuck out of you."

"Wouldn't be the first time I got a shock from somebody grabbing my ass." My eyes stray back to my bag and I gauge whether I might be okay to put up with an accidental electrocution if it means I can zap somebody when I want to.

"Ah-ah-ah, safety first." He captures my hand and winds it around his neck instead, dancing me across Nicole's office. "No worries. You have a one-man security detail on the clock. Now, let me buy you a drink."

"Oh, your girl's drinking for free all night long," Nicole says in her rolling accent and yeah, I sort of forgot she was still here. She winks at me. "I like her style."

"I like it, too," Logan says, and nibbles my ear playfully. "You okay?" he murmurs in an undertone, and I push up on my toes and kiss him.

"How about that drink, flyboy?"

"Ahh," he groans. "Don't call me that. You'll make me miss my baby."

Nicole arches an eyebrow as she opens the door for us.

"His p-l-a-n-e," I whisper behind my hand. "He used to fly fighter jets, but don't bring it up if you don't want to see a tough guy crying into his beer. He had a hard time giving up the Top Gun life for the Mission Impossible life. Hashtag first world problems."

Nicole just shakes her head and locks her office. "You are fishing from an entirely different pool of men than the rest of us, girl. Damn."

And I just laugh and shrug, because Logan's eyes have lightened to a sweet caramel brown, and he's dancing me down the stairs, lifting me down three at a time with a neat little whirling spin, and I don't have the breath left to tell her she's goddamn right and I know it.

#

**Logan**

I dance Veronica across a whole floor of drunk spring breakers, weaving her in and out of them. Someone bumbles in between us and she playfully pokes her head up over their shoulder to catch my eye, feigning surprise, only to duck and peek a boo out from under their arm. When she darts low, I take the cue and reach through to slide her through the guy's wide-spread legs. He yelps in surprise as she pops up with a hoot of triumph.

Then I boot a frat boy with one elbow, hip check another out of her way, mash a short guy a shoulder to the face as I groove my way backwards toward the bar. A path is clearing for us, and Veronica's laughing, and I can knock down college boys all night for a smile like that one.

But when we get close to the bar, it's basically a mosh pit. Veronica's lips are getting tight as bodies press in all around her and she gives somebody an elbow to the throat that I'm pretty sure means a dick just touched her ass.

"Up you go!" I yell and she obediently spins around to put her back to me, sighing in a way I can see in her posture but not hear. I grab her by the waist, toss her up like the quick clean and press of a barbell, then drop her onto my shoulders. My suit coat tugs tight under her thighs, and I reach up and steady her legs.

"Two o'clock," she shouts down to me and I pivot without being able to see where we're headed.

I hear Nicole before I see her. "Get your arses up, you bunch of prat-faced twats! I want that booth."

I snort. Guess her E hasn't kicked in yet, either.

Most of the round booth clears with her swipe of a hand, but one guy protests.

"Who the fuck are you, bitch?"

"Samuel L Jackson's delinquent daughter," I tell the guy. "The crazy one. Hey, I heard she can tear a guy's windpipe out through his left ear. Wanna see?"

Veronica giggles as he scrambles to get away. I bend down and she hops from my shoulders straight onto the low-set coffee table. "God, it's fun to be tall!" she groans, and gives a little shimmy, her hips starting to follow the beat of the music. I catch her hand as I circle the table, her boot pivoting easily on the shining surface so we turn together. When I hit the far inside of the circular booth seat, I give her a quick tug that topples her off the table and right into my arms. Fuck, it's cute how light and easy she is to toss around.

She's used to how gymnastic I get when I'm in a good mood, so she pulls her legs up at just the right moment, knowing I'll catch the rest of her weight. She swings right into me, latching on like a koala bear.

I fall laughingly into the seat while she kisses me breathless.

"You two," Nicole teases without any heat behind it. "You need to let me in on the fun to be your three-way unicorn, or knock off that PDA. You're getting me all heated up, and none of the dick in this joint is up to my standards."

"Don't tempt her!" I call over the music as Veronica bites my ear. My girlfriend has a hell of a girl-crush on the bar owner, and I get a possessive squirming in my gut when I consider that she might just take Nicole up on a threesome with the mood she's in.

"Not even for you am I sharing a piece of this," Veronica warns Nicole, rolling off my lap to drop onto the seat between us and give my chest a pat with a hint of a feline curl to her fingernails.

I can't stop the smile that crinkles the edges of my eyes, and my cock kicks in my pants. It may not involve the ring still riding in my breast pocket, but that's a clear claim my girl is staking there.

Nicole tips her chin up to a passing waiter, then smiles at me with a heated tilt to her eyes. "Pity. You look like you could give a girl a bit of bang for her buck. And you…" She turns those melting eyes on Veronica and my dick is way more on board with this plan than the rest of me is. "Adorable and deadly is so hard to keep my hands off." She looks back to me. "Your type, too, mate?"

"I prefer wicked smart and emotionally unavailable, with just enough curiosity to keep that cat a corpse."

Too late, I realize I've let my mouth run away with me when Veronica's not her normal, alligator-skinned self. I pull her into me and kiss her head, so she knows I didn't mean it as a dig. She flashes a quick glance up at me, but then Nicole's pouring shots. We pound the table with the bottoms and shoot. One round, two, then Nicole's grinning and saying, "Ever wanted to assassinate a king? Because I've got a cannon."

Veronica leaps up onto the bench, jumps to the table, and screams, "Show me the cannon!"

And…no more shots for that girl. I burst out laughing and Nicole tosses her something nearly the size of a grenade launcher. Veronica catches it and raises it to her shoulder, her eyes narrowing as she aims in a way that should not technically be hot, but is somehow _nuclear._

I rise to my feet so I get enough of a vantage point to see her nail Dick right in the face with the tee shirt cannon. He lights up, waving the shirt she just shot him with, and wearing the shirt I brought him like a cape. I did plaid just to yank his chain so it'd clash with his rhinestones and gold lamé, but it's not bothering him a bit. He bounds through the crowd, bellowing, "Man down, man down! Mankiller Veronica claims another casualty!"

Dick's taking my failed proposal pretty hard.

Which, okay, I get it, and I let him grieve in his own way, but tonight his swipes keep making Veronica's face fall. I'm not going to stand for too much of that. I swipe the tee shirt cannon off her shoulder, fiddle for just a second until I figure out how to reload, and get one in the chamber just in time to blast him right in the crotch.

He screams and doubles over, clutching the stuffed front of his gold speedo and borrowed jeans. "My heirs, dude! Who's gonna father the future princes of spring break if you damage the Casa-cajones?!"

"A question for the ages." Veronica turns to slap me a high five for taking the cheap dick shot.

"Down here with that girl," Dick insists, crowding in between us to offer his own high five. "That was a killer shot. Hundred yards if it was an inch."

It was fifty feet if it was an inch, but I'm not going to argue because he's buying her a round of shots and clinking glasses like he might be done with his pouting for one night. Veronica knocks back the shot before I remember that she weighs about thirty pounds and is about to be rolling on Molly. No way is she going to back down if Nicole's the one pouring, so I toss Dick the tee shirt cannon. As he turns to shoot a co-ed, I snatch his crown, drop it on Veronica's blonde head and sweep her off the table in a bridal carry.

She grins up at me. "Does this make me the Queen of Spring Break?"

"I think it makes you the usurper, Khaleesi." I kiss the end of her nose. "Care to make things interesting while we wait for the drugs to kick in?"

"Oh, a bar fight, just for me?" She splays a hand over her chest and bats her eyelashes. "My hero."

"I was thinking a little catch and release."

She snorts. "After last time? You lost so hard. I got rid of my guy like half an hour before you managed to shake your girl."

"Mmm, true." It's no game at all to see who can pick up a date in a bar like this, not for the two of us. So the game became who could pick up and then get a date to ditch them the fastest. Veronica's soft looks and sharp tongue make her a fatal opponent. "You get a handicap," I declare. "You can't speak."

She brightens. "Ooh, now you're talking. I'm still going to wipe the floor with you. You always have to peel the bimbos off your biceps at the end of the game."

"Well, you can always borrow Nicole's sap gloves if I can't manage to shake the girls on my own."

My old jealous streak has eased since Veronica's job has mostly soured her on men. With the exception of me, her father, and Wallace, her reactions to the male of the species run the very short gamut from disdain to disgust. As for the guys in this place? The question isn't whether she's interested. It's whether she'd tase them, or douse them in gasoline and _then_ tase them. So, jealousy isn't often a problem for me anymore.

Veronica, conversely, is every bit as jealous as she was the day she nearly made Jackie go airborne hauling her off me at…one of those high school dances. Who can remember, with all the crepe paper and cheap whiskey involved?

"Okay, I'll take the no talking handicap," she agrees and drops a quick kiss to my lips before wriggling out of my arms and tossing Dick's crown to a passing sorority girl. "May the best _me_ win."

I laugh as she prowls off into the crowd, as competitive as ever. I salute Nicole, who winks back at me. Then I straighten my back, dropping my face into its stony bodyguard lines and twitching my blazer straight. It only takes about forty seconds before a girl falls into my chest and shrieks, "Oh my God are you _Secret Service_?"

I give her a quelling look and her eyes widen. She begins to jump up and down, her bright pink bra peeking out of her tank top more with every jump that rattles her prodigious rack. "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, who are you protecting? Is the President here?"

I glance away. She shrieks.

"You work for the freaking _President_?"

"Off duty," I say tersely and she nods, her hands combing down the front of my shirt in a way that feels vaguely distasteful. Like having your hair petted in the wrong direction. Still, if I want to have a hope of winning this game, I need to set the hook.

I let my eyes focus on her, like I'm seeing her for the first time, and her giant breasts jerk up on an inhale as I paste on an interested look. I nod toward the dance floor, giving my eyebrows a little bounce.

She grins and pulls me by the shirt into the crush of people. It's sweltering in here, and when Nicole passes me, she says, "You look hot, fly boy," and pulls my jacket off my shoulders.

I reach to stop her automatically, my hand jerking toward the inner pocket, and her eyebrows go up. "Carrying something special, is it? I'll lock it up." She flicks a dismissive glance at my pink-bra'ed hanger on. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do, mate."

"Oh, I wouldn't," I assure her. It's a safe bet because I'm pretty sure she wants to fuck my girlfriend at least half as badly as I want to right now. And the drugs haven't even kicked in yet.

I turn back to my enthusiastically dancing "date," who has found my thigh and is attempting to grind her crotch on it.

I let my stoic bodyguard face drop and a smile explode across my face. "Let's dance!" I enthuse, and break into a gangly version of the Sprinkler, that old standard of white man dancing.

She ducks as my flailing arm nearly takes her out, and I Sprinkler my way through a full 360 degrees, taking the opportunity to check on how Veronica's doing. I can tell from her expression that she's just locked onto her target. He's tall, and a hell of a lot more handsome than I'd prefer, though he's got a very punchable law-school face. Baby soft chin he probably shaves once a month whether it needs it or not.

She gives him a cool, disinterested look, and blows right by him. He pivots to follow like there's a magnet in his pants and it's sprinting to catch up to her round ass in those tight jeans. She stops to give him another killing, icy-blue glance, sweeping her shiny hair over one shoulder and oh yeah, now that little lemming would follow her off a cliff straight to his death. Damn, Veronica can hook 'em fast.

I drop my hands, giving a sly wink to my pink-bra'ed mark as I rev right into an enthusiastic Lawnmower.

"Mow that lawn, bitch!" Dick crowds up behind me, spanking my hip as he humps me. I spin around, giving him flint hard eyes. He glares right back, both of us fronting. With no spoken signal, we both drop into fierce, deadpan white man dancing. I'm swiping the credit card, he's prancing around filling the shopping cart.

"Oh my god, you guys are the funniest!" Pink Bra girl squeals, and hops right into the middle of us, doing a flailing monkey that isn't technically white man dancing, but looks bad enough that it should be. I moon-walk a circle around both of them, and catch Veronica's face spasming with the effort of staying blank as she tries to Ice Queen her mark while also choking on laughter at my antics.

Her "date" is gesturing toward the dance floor and she sighs and finally graces him with a one-shoulder shrug. Dick and I go back to back in Charlie's Angels form, then spin around to point our "guns" at Pink Bra. Veronica sputters into helpless laughter, but her date's leading the way to the dance floor and doesn't see. I flush with new warmth to see her face all lit up like that.

Veronica turns to dance with Punchable Face, dissolving from chilly Ice Queen to clingy, lovestruck girl in the space of a breath. She's all over that guy, cooing and moon-eyed and I choke with laughter.

"Don't look now, but I think Ronnie's about to rip that guy's Casablancas off," Dick says. "She never smiles like that unless you're about to die."

"Don't worry," I tell him. "She'll bury her own bodies." Also, there's no way she's gonna shake that law school kid now, because he's three-quarters of the way to the altar. So I have the time to fuck around.

I grab his hand and the girl's at once, spinning them both into me and dipping them at the same time. Dick goes with it deeper and more dramatic than the girl does, so it's a little uneven but still flashy enough to win me a smile, eye roll, and fond head shake from Veronica.

"Sprinkler off!" Dick hollers and we start sprinklering with a vengeance, our arms flailing right over the top of the girl, until even Pink Bra—who turned out to be a startlingly good sport—takes off. Either out of fear of a head injury or because she finally hit critical mass on our dorkiness. Or maybe was blinded by Dick's rhinestones. Could have been any of those things.

I'm starting to feel the glimmer of the drugs kicking in and Veronica's still got Punchable Face stuck to her ass like a herpes outbreak. So I grab Dick and we ferociously tango across the floor. I spin him out and when he hits the end of my arm, he lets go and breaks into a Running Man, and I Windmill until I'm laughing so hard I can barely breathe.

Veronica's tossing more and more glances my way over her mark's shoulder. I've already won this round, but she'll never call the game early. I spin an imaginary lasso in the air and toss it her way, giving her a lascivious smile and a cocky chin tilt to make her laugh, reeling her back in toward me.

She backs her ass up into her date's lap, and his face pinches closed like he just bit a lemon. I snort with laughter, but then he pulls her closer again and my skin wakes up with a wave of angry heat that sends my knuckles clenching. Her face goes calm, and I can't see if she says something, but he looks mad again and backs away from her, hands raised. She shrugs. He pouts like a baby and stomps away.

I toss my fake lasso, and this time when I start to reel, my girl is coming right back toward me.

_Finally. _


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's Note: For the next two chapters, I highly recommend a large glass of wine and putting on the full soundtrack:_

_Calvin Harris- So Close To You  
_

_Nine Inch Nails- Closer  
_

_Maroon 5- Lips on You (this song is so sexy your eyeballs will actually fog over, so make sure to wipe them off so you can keep reading)._

* * *

**Chapter 2 **

**Veronica**

The drugs are starting to thrill through me, sparkling through my veins. My skin can feel _everything _and unfortunately, "everything" currently includes the sweaty, sallow bodies of frat boys, dancing poorly.

My panties are getting warm, and the warmer they get, the more I want to get the fuck away from these human trash heaps. _Damn my pride._ Logan already won, chasing off that bar bimbo by romping all over the dance floor with Dick like a couple of middle school nerds.

Though even I have to admit, their tango isn't half bad.

I have to resort to drastic measures to shake off Baby Face McGee, and then Logan's cracking himself up with his cheesy lasso move, reeling me across the dance floor toward him. But his eyes are bright and shining and it really feels like there's a string between his big hands and my heart, towing me past all these other inconsequential people until I can be close to him again.

It's probably the drugs.

It's got to be the drugs, right?

When I get there, he nudges a gorgeous co-ed out of my way and holds out a hand. As soon as my skin touches his, I nearly go to my knees.

I can feel every ridge of his fingerprints, and they're _beautiful_. The way they curve and loop, and always seem to know exactly where they're going. As confident and sure as the man himself. I grab his hand and bring it up close to my face so I can see the curves as well as feel them. It's like Braille, and it seems like I can read his whole personality in those sweeping trails. But the lights are pulsing in different colors and I can't see his fingertips the way I can _feel _them. I close my eyes, my fingers swimming across his as my pulse flutters up toward my throat.

"Veronica? You okay?"

My eyes pop open and Logan's watching me with a quizzical little smile, stepped in close so nobody else on the dance floor can see what I'm doing. Fuck, I'm acting like an idiot.

I glance around, and catch sight of the guys dancing next to us. "Fuck it, _they're _all idiots!" I don't realize I said it out loud until Logan starts to laugh.

Except now I'm curious, locked onto my theory, and there's only one other person here I know well enough to test it on.

"Dick!" I scream, and the guy next to me leers, "Need a volunteer, honey?"

Logan steps to the side, his face casual and unaware like he's just edging through the crowd, and somehow in the midst of that movement his elbow drives hard into the guy's solar plexus. The asshole drops to the floor. His buddies crowd around, asking him what happened, but he doesn't seem up to the task of explaining. Logan ignores him, and so do I.

"You called for His Majesty?" Dick appears, wearing his rhinestone cloak and Logan's plaid shirt tied over his shoulders, his glittery false abs peeking out.

I grab his hand without explaining, feeling for his fingerprints. His hands are softer than I expected. Not soft like yeah-rich-boy-doesn't-have-a-job soft, but soft like…_sweet_. Like that's part of the message. His prints aren't as seductive as Logan's, but there's something there that's better than I expected. Kinder. More…afraid?

I close my eyes, trying to feel it better.

Logan touches my shoulder. "Uh, Veronica?"

"I know, it feels great, right?" Dick says, standing obediently while I explore his fingertips. "No man, it's cool," he says to Logan. "You guys never rolled together before? Hey, Ronnie, though, Sailor-boy's watching so no kissy-kissy, you get me? I can't play volleyball with broken legs."

The longer I focus the more I feel it: the ghost of a connection. Not intense and diamond perfect like it is with Logan, but more like a low hum that says we're all the same, even me and Dick. And I don't care to think any more about that.

I drop his hand. "Dick, have you ever roasted a marshmallow?"

"Yeah, yum!" he says, not at all thrown by the change in topic.

"You know how if you_ roast_ them for just long enough, they get all golden brown and delicious?"

"Uh-huh, yeah, man."

I take a threatening step forward. "And then, if you leave them in the fire_ ring_ too long, then they turn all black." I lock eyes with him, my gaze like the bright flicker of a taser as I drive home my point about what topic I expect him to no longer be bringing up. "And they fall into the fire." I pat his shoulder. "Sometimes it's best to know when to drop something, before it burns you. Run along, Dick."

"Uh…uh…" He backs away. "I'm uh, gonna dance. Man, E usually makes people _nice_," he mutters as he turns away.

"I'm going to take that to mean he didn't pass the palm reading." Logan sounds bemused but not upset.

"He did, actually." I scowl, because I don't like that one bit, no I do not.

Logan laughs, his eyes crinkling. "Oh come on, admit it already. You love him."

"If that's your idea of love, boyfriend, we've got a conversation or two in our future." The words come out clear, but my body's starting to go warm and fuzzy at all its edges. The colors of the lights brighten and leave little tracers as they dart through the room. Like fairies.

I lift my palm and match it to his. He lets me, standing patiently like we're not the only two motionless people on a floor pounding with writhing bodies.

"You don't feel it?"

He smiles, an odd little catch to it. "You're going to have to be more specific, love. I feel a lot of things."

"Your fingerprints. They're like…bigger. Or I can read them all of a sudden." I realize I sound like a high person, babbling about the meaning of life and how everything is connected, _man_. I snap my mouth shut and start to pull my hand away.

"No, wait." He catches my wrist. "I'm bigger than you. Takes longer for stuff to kick in. Let me feel."

He trails a touch across the very tips of my fingers, so softly the skin doesn't even give under the pressure. My head falls back a little as sensation tingles all the way up into my scalp. I don't realize I'm making a sound until I feel the deep rumble of it in my throat, but it's so loud in here I can't even hear myself. Over the sweat and alcohol, I can smell the clean tang of his cologne. Faded since this morning but deeper, more interesting than any other scent in here.

His free hand finds my hip and _fuck_ I can feel him perfectly. Even through my jeans. I can pick out every ridge of denim as his touch crosses it, traveling to the curve of my ass. I arch closer to him, heedless of all the people around us because they're all grinding like animals, too. This indrawn breath between us is sharp and crystal bright in the midst of the fuzziness of all of…them. Whatever they're all doing.

"I feel it a little," he murmurs, and I don't know how I can hear him when he's this quiet and everything else is so loud. My ears are so calibrated to the rumble of him that we're almost speaking in our own dimension. "It's…" His eyes flick to mine. "Different than when I've done it before." He folds my hand inside his, drops his head to kiss my knuckles even though he catches one of his own in the bargain. "Then again, I've never paid quite so much attention before."

"Dance with me." I breath it out, but my body's already moving to the beat pulsing through the air. His free hand rises from my tingling ass to the sweat-touched curve at the small of my back. Our linked hands he brings up, draping mine over the back of his neck. He's so tall it's almost awkward to dance like this, but then my palm slips enough to find his pulse and it's like I live inside two heartbeats.

The music, which feels like it's following the veins of the whole world, and his heart.

His pulse feels huge and vulnerable against the heel of my hand. The walls of his veins so thin I can sense each pulse of blood as it swells and contracts.

I look up and his pupils are blown wide and mine probably are, too. Fuck, how high am I? Is anybody going to notice? Can I get home okay?

My hand twitches and goes tense against his neck. Logan turns his head and ducks it so he can press the tiniest kiss to the inside of my wrist. Where nobody else would ever think to touch. His knee slips between my legs as he moves closer, his hand secure at the base of my back. It's so big his sprawled fingers cover the entire width of my hips. I let out a breath and the music pounds louder. Pulsing through my every artery and vein. Living red and wet inside my heart. I love it, and it's a little too good all at the same time. Like an orgasm in public.

I shake my hair out just to feel the whisper of strands against my neck. When I open my eyes this time, his are midnight dark, only the touch of warm brown left to them as they follow my every movement. Anyone further away than I am right now wouldn't even get to see the real color of his eyes.

"I'm glad you came back," I tell him. And that doesn't even make sense. I think I meant to say I'm glad he's here, but his head bends a touch closer to mine, and a kiss whispers over my temple.

"I'm glad I'm here, too," he says, like somehow he heard what I meant to say. "And you don't have to worry, Veronica. I'm impossibly hard to kill when I've got you to come back to. You wouldn't even believe me if I told you."

Fear jogs in my throat for a second. It sounds like he's trying to tell me he's been in a really dangerous situation already and gotten out of it. I _need_ to know and I already know it'll eat me alive if I do know, and then somehow the thought just slips past me, the next song starting in a silkier beat than the last.

My hands slip down his arms, finding the cut of his tricep, the swell of his bicep, and fuck I hate that this shirt has sleeves. Why does this shirt have _sleeves? _Why does any shirt have sleeves when skin is so much better?

The music thumps faster and his legs flex and move with it. He's effortlessly athletic and my hands are all over him: the dip at his lower back that expands into unrealistic muscle, his hard ass that always flexes when he drives into me.

"Easy, Bobcat," he purrs in my ear. "Or we're going to be giving Nicole's desk a workout and something tells me she's got cameras in that room."

I pull my hands back to his belt line and hook my fingers into it, letting my fingernails dig into the leather to keep my hands to a safer area. My hips are moving with his, and I know every move he's going to make before he does it. I've always been an okay dancer, but right now, I feel like I am the music, and he's the music, and I can read it all perfectly. I couldn't step wrong if I tried.

"Wheee-ewww!" Dick shrieks, coming past us in a conga line that can't possibly exist in the same silky, heart-thumping song we're dancing to. He tosses something at us. I duck and Logan catches it one-handed without letting go of me.

"Ribbed for her pleasure," he reports. "Don't say Dick never did anything for you."

I lean into him, kissing his throat because it's all I can reach. "Oh, _your _dick does a lot of great things for me. In fact, it's doing a lot of delectable things right at this moment."

And considering I have an IUD and no longer have to put up with the buffering sensation of the condoms Dick just brought us, it could be doing even more delectable things in my near future.

He laughs with a bit of a rasp to it and says, "Wanna get out of here, gorgeous?"

I hook my leg around the back of his and kiss him until his arm clenches and lifts my other foot clean off the ground.

When he puts me down again, I immediately start hauling him toward the door. He chuckles. "You forgot your bag, killer. How many people are you going to need to tase before morning?"

"Bobcat, remember? I've got my own claws." I curl my hands to demonstrate, and then remember my bag has the all-important surveillance footage. "Dammit, I need—"

"That video," Logan finishes for me. "And my jacket, which I'm pretty sure Nicole put up there."

"Your jacket?" I groan as we edge through the crowd toward the office. "God, aren't you _hot_ right now?"

"You have no idea. Follow me." He puts on his stone bodyguard face and barks in his Naval Officer voice, "Matters of national security!" The crowd parts like it's giving obedience lessons to the Red Sea, and he grabs my hand and tows me along in his wake.

We make it up to the office and back out to the front. I'm feeling magnanimous enough that when we reach the exit, I even let Nicole steal a kiss to Logan's chiseled cheek before she fist-bumps me. I love her. I love her drugs. I love that club and the way the sea air is soft on my skin and the way the brick wall is hard against my shoulder blades when Logan spins me up against it and kisses me until I invent a sound halfway between a growl and a whimper.

We giggle and spin and kiss our way through the nine blocks back to our condo, dropping onto park benches so I can press his growing hardness against me, leaning against walls so he can lift me by the thighs and wrap my legs around him. Stumble to a stop midblock just because the way his tongue feels against mine is the most distracting thing I've ever felt and I can't…really…think…when he—

"Don't move, bitch. Or I'll cut you."

I growl with frustration. "Oh, you really don't want to go there with me tonight." Twice in one week. This town is going to hell a lot faster than a handbasket travels. It's flying more at instant message speed, these days.

"I'm going to have to ask you to remove your hand, buddy." Logan's voice is as sharp as the cold metal against my throat. "Or I'm going to remove it for you."

Something about the way he says it makes it pretty clear he's not talking about the knife, but the whole hand.

I sigh, pouting. I'm really not in the mood to save this guy's life, but he'll thank me when he still has enough hands to pop his own pimples.

"You've got two choices, buddy," I lie to him, shifting my hips slightly to the left.

"Oh, I don't see it that way. Because I—YRP!" He cuts off into a sharp bark of surprise from the hit, then nothing as the electricity of the taser locks down his vocal chords.

"Really, Veronica?" Logan surveys the guy now laying full length on the concrete. "In the dick? Now I don't know if I should be turned on or shriveling in sympathy."

I pick up the guy's switchblade, close it, and stuff it in my pocket. A second later I've got his ID, the other wallets he stole tonight, and have tied his shoelaces together. I stand. "Well, I'm ready to go, if you can tear your libido away from its existential crisis."

"One more second." He hauls the guy back to standing by the shirtfront, so fast it rips some of the fabric out. "Friend," he says conversationally, "I don't want to see you out here giving women any trouble during spring break, or it's going to feel like this." He drives his fist into the guy's stomach, so hard it lifts both his feet off the ground.

The mugger comes back down, sort of screech-wretching in pain and Logan shakes him, sorting out his tied-shoelace feet for him so he's more or less holding his own weight again.

"And if you see _her."_ He grabs the guy by the face and pivots it toward me. "And you don't run immediately the other direction? It's going to feel like this."

He moves so fast I hear the crack of bone before I register where his fist landed. The mugger shrieks and Logan swaps hands, breaks the bottom rib on the other side. Drops the guy.

Our criminal-in-training makes a wheezing whine and tries to make a break for it, trips on his shoelaces. Toes out of them and goes scrambling barefoot back into the dirty streets of Neptune.

I sigh. "Sorry about that, babe. I've been meaning to tell you the riff raff is a little thick on the beaches these days." I tuck the wallets and taser back into my bag but before I finish he's pulling me into a deep, breathlessly hard hug.

"Shut up," he says. "I know you're fine. Just give me a minute." He swallows. "He took you right out of my _arms_, Veronica."

I sigh. "Now you're not going to let me kiss you the whole way home, are you?"

He hugs me a little harder, the waves washing up on the beach with a quiet crash and whoosh of retreat. "C'mon." He keeps hold of my hand, his eyes scanning the area this time as we walk. I don't bother.

The kind of baby PCH'ers they send to pick the tourist's pockets aren't dangerous enough to make either of us break a sweat. Even _with_ the element of surprise.

Besides, I've never noticed before how strong Logan's wrists are. They're impossibly thick and veiny, the ropes of muscle wrapped tight over dense bone in an intricate pattern. I've never paid much attention before, but it's absolutely perfect, the way it's designed to let him move and grip so many different ways. No wonder his hands are so strong.

"You know, if you were this into stroking that law school guy's forearms, it's no wonder you had so much trouble shaking him off." Logan slants me an amused look, before his gaze flicks to another sweep of the shadowy parking lots on the other side of the boardwalk from the beach.

"Ugh." I make a gagging sound, then something occurs to me. "Wait, how did you know he was in law school?" The corner of my mouth kicks up. "Did you background check my mark on your phone, Mr. Intelligence Officer?"

"When you grow up around the Hollywood crowd, you learn to ID the different species of douchebag by sight. How did _you_ know he was in law school? Did you cheat and talk to him?"

"Cheat? Moi?" I bat my eyelashes, but seeing him in flashes only makes his jaw look more chiseled, his face more leanly handsome, and I have to look away before I can sort out how to keep up with this whole moving-legs-to-walk thing. Logan is handsome every day. But Logan when I'm on ecstasy is really…well, it makes me understand why women used to keep fainting couches close on hand, is all I'm saying.

Good thing this sand looks soft.

"Nice evasion. I'm counting that as a double win for me, since you cheated."

"I didn't cheat! He told me he was in law school within the first two minutes of dancing, like any good douchebag." I sniff. "And I'm not agreeing to that handicap again. Talking is my best tool for driving guys away." The words taste bitter on my tongue, probably because they're true. "Especially since blowing them off is how I get them hooked in the first place."

"So how did you do it?"

"Farted on him."

Logan shouts with laughter. "What? No, you didn't."

"Had to do it _twice_ before he took a hint!" I shake my head. "Guys these days, Jesus."

Logan's laughing too hard to keep walking now, and he's bent over with his hands braced on his knees. A tiny smile tugs at my lips. I fold my arms and wait for him to be done having a laugh at my very undignified expense. I keep watch, just because if we get mugged again right now, he probably won't laugh again for six months. The big, overprotective lug.

Therapy may have smoothed him out, but he still can't stand any threat to me. As that poor PCH'ers ribs found out.

He wipes his eyes and takes my hand again, still chuckling. "Damn, Veronica. You need to work a little less. I forgot how much fun you are."

"You and me both," I mutter, and wish I had another shot of whiskey. But then his hand shifts against mine and the pleasure ripples out through me like a pebble dropped in a pond, erasing any reflection that was there before.

It's funny, I feel like I'm thinking perfectly clearly. And then as soon as he touches me, my pulse jolts another notch higher, all my skin starts to heat, and I'm so excruciatingly aware of every place we're touching that I can't hold another thought in my head. His body feels new and exciting, the way it used to be back when we were making out in his old yellow Xterra and every touch was a first for us.

I let go of his hand and slide my fingers up under the back of his shirt. He starts walking faster, the muscles in his back flexing with every step. "One more block," he promises me, and wraps an arm over my shoulders, hurrying me along.

One more block is way too long to wait for a man like him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**Logan **

Despite her promises to not distract me from potential muggers, Veronica only makes it to the base of our stairs before she's kissing me again, her lips lighting up the base of my throat. Her tiny hand sneaks into my pants, as if I wasn't already having enough trouble walking.

"Veronica, _behave_," I tease in my best Austin Powers accent, and instead she squeezes the base of my cock. I groan and pin her against the side of the condo, jerking sharply up into her hand. She wraps a leg around my hips and bucks me closer, her eyes dark and hazy with sin.

A banging shakes the wall behind us, the AirBnb'ers shouting, "Learn to walk already!"

"Ung," is Veronica's very witty response to that, and then she's cupping my balls and doing something with a light scrape of fingernails that makes me break out in a sweat under the collar of my shirt.

I should have told Nicole to cut her tab of E in half, because my girlfriend is wild right now. Regular Veronica drives me completely out of my mind and wild Veronica very well might kill me. But it's too late now, because that beautiful rush is pulsing under my skin, too. I always want her, like my attraction to her is a river pouring through my veins into every corner of my body. But tonight, it's the whole sea.

I'm dancing so perilously close to the edge of control that it actually scares me when her hand finds the head of my cock and her thumb slips underneath with a quick, practiced little flick that wrings a growl from my throat.

I pick her up. I'm too far gone to sort out some normal way to carry her. Instead I just grip her hard enough and high enough that her feet are off the ground so I can get us the fuck up the stairs. Then I bend the key trying to ram it into the door.

"Veronica, the fucking _door_," I groan, hoping she'll take care of it, but instead she climbs me like a tree. Her legs come around my waist, the center of her rubbing right over my achingly hard dick, while she devours my neck with fierce bites and pretty little kisses. I get the key on the fourth try and shove the door open. Kiss her across the room and onto the couch, and then remember the fucking keys.

I dart back and rip them out of the door, slam it and lock it, and that is the last responsible decision I'm making all night, I swear to fucking God. I rip off my blazer and shirt as I head back to the couch, but Veronica's already giggling away down the hall, leaving a trail of clothes behind her. I catch a glimpse of naked, shapely buttocks and sprint after her.

I catch her before she makes it to the bed and she's full length naked against me, the slide of her bare skin against my clothes the most interesting thing I've ever felt. Her scent is doing something to me tonight. Like every time I inhale it, my nostrils flare and I feel like I'm going to float right off the ground, trailing along behind her like a cartoon character.

I boost her up onto the bed so she's on hands and knees and I growl my way down the backs of her thighs, scraping my teeth over her tight flesh. She shivers and I slip my thumb into the soaked center of her, working her over until she's bucking against my hand, writhing against where I'm kissing down her legs. I pull my hand away and replace it with my tongue, licking her deep and slow until she starts to shudder. Then I flip her onto her back in a roll of legs and sheets and nibble my way up to her naval, not giving her the orgasm she's mewling for.

She grips my shoulders, her fingertips exploring the exact line at the edge of my deltoids. Heat flares inside my head at her appreciation of my body.

"Logan," she chokes out, but it sounds like a question, not her usual, "please let me come" voice.

I bury my face in her neck, letting my weight press her down into the bed as I roll my hips against her. All the clothes between us are maddening. "Mmm…" is all I can say back to her, because I'm living on her scent and it just gets better the more of it I have.

"Wait," she groans, but she's bucking up against me even as she says it. She's found my hand, and she's kissing my knuckles where they're only half-healed from the fight with the Congressman's hillbillies. "I'm sorry," she whispers, and I'm confused until I remember the cabinet before that, all my blood on the scraps of wood.

"I'm fine, sweetheart." I duck my head to distract her with a kiss—sometimes when she's drunk, Veronica gets really protective and fusses all over me every time I so much as frown. If she's really drunk, she'll start crying and apologizing for stuff she said years ago. But she doesn't let herself that far out of control very often. Maybe twice, ever.

She cups my cheek, her legs tight around my hips. "I don't mean…" Her voice catches. "I don't want to make you lose control again. Not if it makes you hate yourself in the morning. It's just all so much, this feeling, and I know I'm a little crazy right now, and I _want _you, I mean I always want you but you know what I mean and…" She bites her lip and groans a little, her nipples peaking hard against my chest.

I reach between us and unbutton my jeans. "Are you saying you're too horny from the E and you're feeling_ guilty_ for attacking me?" I try not to laugh, because she's so earnest right now and I was having my own worries, just a minute ago. But the idea that her seducing me could be anything but amazing? Is just wrong.

She nods, her eyes glittering. "Last time, it was so good I couldn't even think, and you left me your therapist's_ card_ afterward."

The corner of my mouth twitches. Okay, possibly I could have handled that better. "I had a lot of…feelings." I shove my jeans down. "And it was fuck all hot, yeah, but I don't like to be out of control with you, especially not in bed." She's so small. And I can be very physical.

The part of me that can throw the whole snap of my body weight up against a wave…the part of me that thrills to a fight, whether it's with fists or jets… There's an energy that rides me sometimes, quivering in all my muscles, and I should be more careful with Veronica than that.

"You didn't hurt me," she gasps, rubbing herself against the full, hard length of me with a shiver that leaves her eyes rolling back in her head. "You never hurt me."

"But I could have." I can hardly think, even now, with the way she's all around me.

"I just wanted to know you were scared, too. Because if you weren't scared to lose us, and I was the only one…" She clutches my hip, her nails digging in, and I stare down at her.

"Veronica, I wasn't as scared because I knew I _wasn't _losing us." I brush her hair back. "You didn't dump me, remember? You just said we couldn't call it marriage." I pull away long enough to shuck my pants and boxers and surge up onto the bed. "If you think I would ever leave you, you haven't been paying attention."

"I can't…" She breaks off, her hands roaming over my chest.

All night, she hasn't been able to stop touching me. Even before the drugs kicked in. And that small, lonely part of me is soaking it up like I can never get enough proof that I'm what she wants.

I kiss her forehead, gently. "You can't what, love?"

"I can't lose you," she gasps, her voice throaty with the tears she doesn't want me to see. She's burying her face in my neck like I won't be able to feel them against my skin, and I stroke the back of her hair. "Not the way all my clients always lose their husbands. To other women and jobs and they always end up _hating_ each other and I don't want us to hate each other."

I nip at her ear, a little charmed by how Drunk Veronica is deeply horny and deeply emotional all at the same time. I can't say I mind.

"Okay," I say agreeably. "I guess I won't hate you, then."

She smacks my shoulder. "Logan! I'm serious."

I kiss her neck, trail my tongue all the way up to her ear until her nipples are peaking hard again. "Um, okay, I will hate you? Sorry, sweetheart, I got distracted by your perfect breasts." I dip my head to kiss the left, then the right. "What was the right answer again?"

I've got her giggling now, but her eyes are still a little watery. "So, you're not mad at me?" Her voice is teasing, but she's not joking.

I prop my elbow next to her head and ignore the bolt of fear. She started it, and I'm not passing up my one opportunity this decade for my girlfriend to be in the mood to talk about her feelings.

I am also not surprised that it took illegal drugs to put her in that frame of mind.

I kiss her soft eyebrow, then her chin. Then her lips. "I love you," I whisper, very softly, because she knows how much I mean it, which means it always frightens her.

Veronica doesn't like to get attached to things that can be taken from her.

"I asked you to marry me because I wanted us to promise to commit to each other, no matter what, not just for however long it's easy or convenient." I pause. "I'm sorry, and I should have known better. I did it because I crave anything that feels like stability. That's why I wanted a house or a condo, not an apartment. Part of why I love all the rules and traditions and contracts in the Navy. And I know to you, those kinds of promises feel like they're daring fate to take away whatever you just said you want to keep forever."

I dip my hips and slip inside her with one long, gentle thrust. She's impossibly wet, and she flexes around me, her head falling back for a second as she loses the thread of the conversation in a quick gasp of pleasure.

I hitch her leg up over my hip, stroking it softly as I stay seated inside her, as close as we can ever get. Alone and safe in our home. I cradle her face and will her to trust us.

We're dangerous, capable people, and if we can't keep each other alive and safe in this crazy world, no one can.

"I know those kinds of promises are the opposite of what makes _you_ feel safe," I tell her, holding her gaze. "I was selfish, asking anyway because it was what I needed. And yeah, for a second, it hurt like hell when I thought you didn't want to be with me as much as I wanted to be with you."

"Logan that's not—" she begins to protest.

"I know," I interrupt. "I can see it all over you. You're scared I'm going to leave because you won't marry me." I start to move inside her, and her body arches with tension, the sensation unbearably intense right now. "You love me."

I don't know if it's the drugs, or the closeness of this conversation, but I'm not just guessing—I can _feel_ it tonight. Like it's seeping from her body into mine. Like I'm reading it in how tightly she holds me, with her legs and her arms and even deep inside, where she clasps my cock and willingly takes me into her body.

And suddenly I remember the way she surveyed the other guys in the bar tonight, how unimpressed she looked, and the way her gaze kept coming back and locking onto me. I surge into her faster, my heart thumping fast with the reminder of it all.

"I can't lose you," she says again, her eyes sparkling with tears. "I wasn't supposed to ever love anyone this much."

I kiss her, long and playful and confident with all these truths I suddenly know about her, before I pull back to smirk. "I'm irresistible. How could you help yourself?"

She tries to scowl at me and ends up laughing, and I love the sound of it so much that I'm grinning as I fuck her. I grin even harder when she stutters and loses her breath.

"Jesus. Do you think it feels like this to other people?"

I haul her leg up and press her folded knee against my chest so I can rail into her deeper, more intimately. "Sex? Oh hell no. We're blowing other people away at sex."

"No, I mean this…" She's panting, clenching around me, her hands running over every bit of my body she can reach. "How…"

We're both breathing too hard to hold a conversation and she feels so good I can't stop thrusting, rubbing myself deeper into her. But she keeps trying.

"How it…" she gasps. "I can like…feel everything, like I can read you through your skin. Like I _know_ you."

I roll us onto our sides, tuck her in closer and lean my forehead against hers as I anchor her lower back and give her deep, powerful pushes that lock me hard into her body. "You do know me."

"Yeah, but…"

I love how hard she's trying to explain this to me, at how close her words skim to the disjointed impressions that have been passing through my head all night. I grab my hand and tangle our fingers together. "I feel it, too."

It's crazy, supernatural even. I remember feeling more optimistic toward other people the last time I was on E, but that was more of a fuzzy "I love you, man" kind of thing. Which on me, translated more as a, "I can almost tolerate your presence" kind of thing. It was nothing like it is with her.

I always feel so much for her, but even that's a little sharper tonight, like a clean radio signal with no interference. And she's so beautiful and fuck, I missed her so _much_ on this last job. No one makes me laugh the way she does, so quick you never expect what she might say next. Conversations with everyone else always feel so sluggish. Like you have to explain every last thing.

And sex…I've had more sex than any person probably should ever have, and it never lit me up this way. Like a light pouring out from the very core of me, sparkling across every nerve ending. I can't stop kissing her, driving my body against hers, living on every gasp and moan that tells me she's feeling it with me. The impossibility of how good it really is between us.

I don't know when we stop talking. Maybe because we're communicating more deeply than that now. She wants to touch every part of me, let our bodies come together in every different position I can invent. It's like she's reading all my secrets through my skin and it's an exhale of relief to let her. Because right now, she's finally letting me feel how desperately much she loves every piece of who I am, who I've been. Who I might grow to be.

I'm drunk on it, this feeling that's maybe what I've been looking for my whole life. An utter, immutable certainty that I'm loved. That I will be loved until my last breath. Now that I have that, nothing else can touch me. Nothing else could possibly matter.

Maybe this is what it feels like to be safe.


	4. Chapter 4

_ Author's Note: I am having a Very Good Day. So let's all have a happy chapter to celebrate, shall we? My dedication to research for fanfic does not extend to doing illegal drugs, so any inaccuracies in the details of this chapter are my fault, for not misspending my youth enough._

**Chapter 4**

**Veronica**

I wake up feeling so bad, I don't even have words to describe it. Logan's gone, with all his sparkling magical skin and kisses that feel like they could cure cancer. I convulse around a cramp in my stomach, my feet kicking in the wrecked sheets.

Oh, fuck my terrible life.

I stagger out of bed and fall against the wall, feeling my way to the bathroom. There's a roaring sound like maybe a hurricane blew in overnight, and it takes me a minute to sort out that it's the shower running. Why it sounds so loud at the moment is a mystery for another PI.

"Want to join me in my study?" Logan says, his voice bright and happy, and my heart pings a little. Maybe last night wasn't a dream. If he sounds that cheerful, and my legs are this wobbly, all of _that _might actually have been real.

But then my stomach torques and I fall toward the toilet, grabbing the rim just in time to boot the contents of everything I've ever eaten into the water.

"Huh," Logan says from behind the curtain. "That tracks."

All I can do is gasp toilet-scented air and regret everything.

"Is this like the last time you got sick, and I'll lose a finger if I try to hold your hair back?"

"Ung."

"Okay, just moan if you need me to carry you back to bed."

The shampoo bottle snaps open with an annoyingly pert pop. There's a knock at the front door and I flush the toilet and drag myself to the living room. I don't need to be carried. Probably.

It's my _father_ of all people, and he wants to talk about _work_, of all things. All I can think are inappropriate thoughts.

_Hi Daddy! I did drugs and now I have a naked man in my shower with the most beautiful fingerprints on earth. Oh and by the way, last night, I fucked him in ways that would make the Kama Sutra blush._

I manage to stumble through the conversation without saying anything too revealing, but all my veins feel like they're filled with concrete dust: heavy and gray. When my dad leaves, I slump back to the bedroom to change, gravity tugging me inexorably toward the ground with every step. Logan lifts an impossibly energetic eyebrow as I slap hangers aside and rip a shirt out of my closet.

"What are you doing?"

"Going to work," I rasp. "Fucking security tapes. Bomber."

"Um, no." He plucks the shirt out of my hands. "You're not working today."

"How do you figure, champ?"

"Question. Have you ever come down from ecstasy before?"

I glare at him for asking a stupid question. Logan is very aware of how many drugs I do not do. It took me something like three years after law school to be able to smoke a simple joint without being hypervigilant about being out of my right mind, and maybe acting stupid, or not being able to protect myself if someone tried to take advantage of me. And I've never told him this, but I rarely risk any kind of drugs when he's not with me.

"Why are you not sicker?" I grouch at him.

"Easy. I had half as much as you."

"We were doing shots together," I argue. "And Nicole gave us the same dose of E."

He flexes like Popeye, and gives me a grin that should be goofy but is really kind of dazzling. Maybe because he's only wearing a towel. "Yes, but I'm twice your size. Math, my darling Watson."

"I'm Sherlock. You're Watson." I try to duck around him to reach my work clothes. "And speaking of, I have a case to solve."

"You're not going to be able to solve anything today, no matter how many hours you spend in the office." He takes me by the shoulders and turns me toward him. "When you come down off E," he tells me, "your brain goes to mashed potatoes and everything feels gray. It's like everything interesting has been drained out of the world. Pretty much, you feel like you've got Stage 4 Lymphoma and no one on earth will ever love you again."

I frown, remembering suddenly that he's coming down, too. "Wait, is that how you feel right now?"

"I'm okay. I didn't take enough to add up to a hangover, by my standards." He kisses my forehead. "But you, my tiny turtledove, are fucked. You get couch time, cuddling, and Hallmark movies all day, or I'll be hiding the razor blades by noon. Now get thee to the shower. Not even _I _will cuddle you when you smell like this." He pats my bottom, herding me toward the bathroom. "I'll bring you a change of clothes."

"Hallmark movies?" I squint through ragged strands of my hair. "Who are you and what have you done to my badass Navy boyfriend?"

"Better question. Why didn't you misspend more of your youth, so I wouldn't have to explain to you about coming down off drugs?"

I snort in response, sounding like a heifer with indigestion, and feeling like an unwashed Oompa Loompa.

He gives me a sly, crooked grin with his eyes alight. "Now, let's get some more details about how you think I'm a badass…"

"I can't believe you called me a fucking turtledove." I slouch away toward the bathroom, frowning at the floor.

I don't like the idea that he's been on Ecstasy before when I wasn't around. Who did he fuck? When he touched them, could he read their fingerprints? And I really, really don't like the idea that he came down from it alone, feeling like no one had ever loved him. Somehow, when I picture it, he's on his old couch at the Neptune Grand, curled onto his side with his big hands tucked between his knees.

I turn back and meet him coming up the hall with a bottle of water and an aspirin. I hug him hard, ignoring the water. "Are you sure you're okay?" I ask, even though talking hurts all the way from my eyebrows to my bellybutton. He hugs me back, far more gently.

"I'm okay, promise." He pulls away and smirks. "Or I will be, once you don't smell so much like rancid vomit. My sweet little turtledove."

I give him some side-eye, considering. I don't know if it's because I'm so hungover that he just looks that much better by contrast, or because my fantastic dream of soul-bewitching sex was actually real, but I'm not sure I've ever seen Logan this happy.

Either way, it's the only thing about today that I don't hate entirely.

#

I lay on the couch, pouting my way through my third Hallmark movie. Logan was so painfully, horribly right about the ecstasy hangover. The whole world feels as pointless as high school. My libido is as limp as a discarded piece of yarn, and if I tried to work a case right now, I'd probably spike my coffee with hemlock at all the reminders that people are basically selfish, immoral trash fires.

Except Logan. And Wallace. They're pretty okay. Wallace made an emergency delivery of bacon earlier, which Logan proceeded to cook for me before he ate something he called "an egg white omelet" and what I called "a vomitorium of mucus-adjacent food textures."

Right now, Logan's curled up behind me with his legs warming mine, his arm ridiculously heavy but nice, where it cuddles over the top of mine. My head is tucked under his chin, which is the only place the terrible hangover thoughts can't find me.

I've got on my softest leggings and Logan's "Property of the US Navy" shirt. When he wears it, it makes me scowl and want to commit a small amount of arson—just enough that he never has to be deployed again. But when I wear it, it's sort of like he belongs to the Navy but I'm his and he's mine, and I don't feel quite so homicidal. That explanation makes no logical sense, actually, but I like it anyway. And when he saw me in his shirt, his eyes glowed like maybe his libido _doesn't_ feel like a limp piece of yarn this morning.

Though considering the working over I gave him last night, I'm not sure how that's physiologically possible.

Maybe there's something to those egg white omelets.

Logan also, in his infinite thoughtfulness, pulled the sheer curtains over the windows to create a safe little nest where the light can't stab into my eyeballs. And when the AirBnb'ers woke up and turned on Metallica, he quietly went downstairs and quietly put the fear of God into them. They've been so silent since that I think they're still down there shaking in their boots.

Since then, he's been just sitting with me. Stroking my hair. Kissing my wrists. Smiling his soft-eyed smile at me every time a new wave of hangover-depression starts to tug me down, so it can never quite sink me all the way. I'm even starting to like the fucking Hallmark movies.

"How can she not recognize this Santa as the guy who's also her childhood best friend?" I grouch, gesturing at the screen. "It's just a fake beard, not full plastic surgery. Has she never looked at his _face_ before?"

"Thought you were just watching for the puppies," he teases. "How is it you know so much about the plot?"

I scowl and pull his enormous arm more tightly around me, like my own personal bicep blanket. "Quiet, you."

The Hallmark movies are so saccharine I'll probably need three cavities filled by Tuesday, but there's something nice about them, too. How everybody in the little movie town is good, underneath. How everything works out in the end. It's how I feel every time Logan comes home from deployment, whole and safe and handsome and inexplicably, mine.

It's like the world isn't so bad after all.

This spark of optimism lasts until Logan gets up to go to the bathroom, and then the crushing hope hangover squeezes me down into the couch cushions until I can barely breathe again. To fight it back, I get up and sneak around the apartment, looking for the blazer he wore last night. I have a hunch I haven't been able to get out of my mind.

I'm back on the couch by the time Logan returns, but he glitches slightly when he sees me. The hesitation only lasts a second, and then he slides in behind me, his warmth bathing my body until all my muscles relax. He slides his fingers in between mine, bumping the band of the glittering ring I'm wearing.

"Shut up."

"I didn't say a word!"

The sound of his voice, so light and happy, makes me feel like a flock of doves just made a run for it inside my chest. I scowl to combat all that fucking fluttering.

"I thought I'd just try it on for a minute, since you're apparently going to keep carrying it around everywhere anyway. Don't make a big deal out of it."

"Far be it from me to make a big deal out of anything. Especially the love of my life curled on the couch in yoga pants, with her hair all adorably messy, and my ring on her finger." He kisses my head, and even that small movement manages to be smug.

I try to watch the movie, because I really don't want to keep talking about this, and also because I think Santa Claus is about to get the kiss of his life. But the curiosity won't leave me alone.

"Logan?"

"Yeah?" His voice is a little hoarse, this time, but it still sounds glowingly pleased.

"How come the ring didn't have a box?"

"Uh." That gives him some pause. "It used to have one. It got…dirty."

I think about that for a second. If he doesn't want to say how, that probably means it got blood on it. Which might mean he bought it way before this mission.

"How long were you carrying it around?"

He hesitates.

"I won't freak out," I say to the screen, where Santa Clause is indeed getting kissed within an inch of his fake-bearded life. Though very chastely, because Hallmark.

"Since you came back to Neptune."

I suck in a breath.

"I never really meant to give it to you," he rushes to say. "Not after all our talks about not getting married. I just carried it, I don't know. To remind me of you, to remind me how much I wanted a life with you and that I had something to come back for these days. But then, you brought up marriage, and I thought you were hinting, not joking, and I…it felt right. You felt right." He pauses. "We don't have to talk about it anymore."

"Good. Because I think there's a puppy scene coming up once we get through all this kissy kissy crap."

He scoff-laughs and snuggles me a little closer. "You're the worst Hallmark watching partner ever."

"Damn straight. Remember that next time you guilt-trip me into staying home from work with you."

I mean to stay quiet, but every beat of my heart is counting off the days all the way back to when he bought that ring. When he hadn't seen me in nine years and we'd only had two weeks together before we were parted again.

"Logan?"

"Mmm?" His thumb is tracing the line of the ring on my finger. The one we're not talking about. The one we both already know I'm never taking off.

"I knew, too. Even back then."

His chest goes still behind me as he stops breathing, and my hand tightens on his.

"For nine years after I left Neptune, I told myself I managed to fall in love once, and I could do it again just as easy with someone else… And the second I saw you in that airport, I knew I was a goddamn liar. And it was only ever going to be you."

"Forty-nine dollar ticket to Palm Springs." He kisses the top of my head. "Totally worth it."


End file.
